For nearly 100 years, the Lower School has been guided by the motto, “Be the Best of Whatever You Are,” derived from a poem of the same name by Douglas Malloch. The poem was introduced to the Lower School community by Leah Watts Dawson, the first Head of Lower School who held the position for 34 years from 1931 to 1965.
Students memorized the four-stanza poem of encouragement and inspiration, and in 1951, The Week reported: “Headmaster Doc Lamborn admonished, ‘Anyone who has ever spent some time in the Lower School should be in readiness to recite Be the Best of Whatever You Are upon like provocation (the drop of a hat). This stipulation applies as well to boys who are there now or have ever been there.'”
Today, chances are that any current or former Lower School student can still recite or sing the lines that have been a staple at Chapel gatherings for many, many years. Listen to lower schoolers sing Be the Best of Whatever You Are.
Be the Best of Whatever You Are
by Douglas Malloch
If you can’t be a pine on the top of the hill,
Be a scrub in the valley—but be
The best little scrub by the side of the rill;
Be a bush if you can’t be a tree.
If you can’t be a bush be a bit of the grass,
And some highway happier make;
If you can’t be a muskie then just be a bass—
But the liveliest bass in the lake!
We can’t all be captains, we’ve got to be crew,
There’s something for all of us here,
There’s big work to do, and there’s lesser to do,
And the task you must do is the near.
If you can’t be a highway then just be a trail,
If you can’t be the sun be a star;
It isn’t by size that you win or you fail—
Be the best of whatever you are!
